Volume I Part 23 (2/2)
The conversation began, upon the part of Charles, by complaints of the treatment which he had received fro,” he said, ”amused him with vain hopes, and deceived him with proreed with the confidence which he had in his own claims, and with the enthusiasm which the loyalty of his father's brave and faithful subjects had inspired in hie, since his Highness had come without the stipulated aid; and, therefore, since there was not the least prospect of success, he advised the Prince to return to France, and reserve himself and his faithful friends to some more favourable opportunity[272]
This counsel was extre and gallant Prince declared to one of the Macdonalds, who had urged the same opinion, that he did not choose to owe the restoration of his father's throne to foreigners, but to his own friends, to wholory of that event[273] He therefore refused to follow Lochiel's advice, asserting that there could not be a more favourable moment than the present, when all the British troops were abroad, and kept at bay by Marshal Saxe In Scotland, he added, there were only a few regiments, newly raised, and unused to service These could never stand before the brave Highlanders; and the first advantage gained would encourage his father's friends to declare thehlanders to begin the war”
”Lochiel,” to use the words of Mr Ho Charles to be more temperate, and consent to remain concealed where he was, till he (Lochiel) and his other friends should ether and concert as best to be done” Charles, whose mind ound up to the utard to this proposal, but answered, that he was determined to put all to the hazard ”In a few days,” said he, ”with the few friends that I have, I will erect the royal standard, and proclaim to the people of Britain that Charles Stuart is come over to claim the crown of his ancestors, to win it, or to perish in the attempt: Lochiel,” continued he, ”who my father has often told me was our firmest friend, may stay at home, and learn from the newspapers the fate of his Prince; and so shall every iven ular conversation on the result of which depended peace or war; for it is a point agreed ahlanders, that if Lochiel had persisted in his refusal to take arms, the other chiefs would not have joined the standard without him, and the spark of rebellion must have instantly expired[274]
To the details of this interview are added others, which somewhat reflect upon the disinterestedness of Lochiel They rest, however, upon hearsay evidence; and, since conversations repeated rarely bear exactly their original signification, soiven before they are credited: yet, even if true, one can scarcely condemn a man who is forced into an enterprise fro hi to preserve an inheritance which he ard as a trust, rather than a property It must also be remembered that Donald Cameron was at this time only nominally the proprietor of the patri is the extract from Bishop Forbes's diary, from which the information is supplied:--
”Leith, Thursday, April 9, 1752
”Alexander Macdonnell, the younger, of Glengary, did me the honour to dine with ary, that I had oftener than once, heard the Viscountess Dowager of Strathallan tell, that Lochiel, junior, had refused to raise a ive him security for the full value of his estate, in the event of the atteary answered, that it was fact, and that the Prince hi fro this as the weighty reason why he (the Prince) had shown soLochiel (preferably to all others) in a regiment 'For,' said the Prince, 'I must do the best I can, inGlengary told ain with the Prince notwithstanding,) insisted upon another condition before he would join in the atteive it under his hand to raise his clan and join the Prince Accordingly Glengary, senior, when applied to upon the subject, did actually give it under his hand, that his clan should rise under his own second son as colonel, and Mac Donell, of Lochgary, as lieutenant-colonel Then, indeed, young Lochiel was gratified in all his deary, junior, likewise assured reement with the Prince, before he would join the atte Lochiel had done, viz to have security from the Prince for the full value of his estate, lest the expedition should prove unsuccessful; which the Prince accordingly consented unto, and gave security to said Cluny Mac Pherson, junior, for the full value of his estate Young Glengary declared that he had this frohty reason why he, Cluny, would not part with the ”
Lochiel, after these arrangements with the Prince, returned to Achnacarry, in order to prepare for the undertaking A deep sadness pervaded his deportan thus to fulfil his pro once embarked in the enterprise, he exerted hied in it with the full approbation of his judgment We cannot wonder at his dejection, for his assent was the assent of all the clans It was a point agreed ahlanders, that had Lochiel not proceeded to take arms, the other chiefs would not have joined the standard without him; and the ”spark of rebellion,” thus writes Mr Home, ”must instantly have expired” ”Upon this,” says an eye-witness of the Rebellion, ”depended the whole undertaking; for had Lochiel stood out, the Prince ate that brought hi for a landing of foreign troops The event has shown that he would have waited for a long time”[275]
From henceforth the career of Lochiel was one of activity and of exertions which it must have been al and foreboding He arranged his papers and affairs as aout on a journey from which he was not to return,[276] and he suive aid to a cause which as Mrs Grant re”[277] He sent hout Lochaber and the adjacent countries in which the Ca his chieftains to prepare and to accompany their chief to Glenfinnin Before, however, the day appointed had arrived, a party of the Caun the war by attacking Captain John Scott, at High Bridge, eight lory of this short but important action is due to Macdonald of Keppoch; the affair was over when Lochiel with a troop of Cae of the prisoners, and carried theust (old style), Lochiel, followed by seven hundred men,his approach When the Prince landed frolen, Lochiel was not to be seen; and the adventurer, entering one of the hovels, waited there two hours, until the sound of the bagpipes announced the approach of the Ca to their destiny advanced in two lines of three men deep, whilst between the lines were the prisoners taken at High Bridge, unarmed, trophies of the first victory of the Jacobites The Ca and as well skilled in the use of arms as any of the clans of Scotland, and as little addicted to pilfering as any Highlanders at that time could be; for Lochiel had taken infinite pains totheht,” says a writer of the time, ”his authority sufficient to keep his clan in subjection, and never troubled his head whether they obeyed him out of love or from fear”[278] Lochiel had not been able to prevail upon any of his brothers-in-law to acco, and, in some instances, afterwards joined it One ure in the vale of Glenfinnin
This was the celebrated Jenny Cahter of Cameron of Glendessery, and a kinswoman of Lochiel She is reported to have been a , and upwards of forty, according to one account,--to another, of fifty years of age Her father, whose estate did not exceed in value one hundred and fifty pounds a year, had endeavoured to i in cattle, a business frequently followed even by hlands He had been sorandson, a youth of weak intellect, to who e, left all matters of business entirely to his aunt; and she came, therefore, to the standard of Prince Charles, as the representative of her nephew
Her appearance, if we are to accredit conte collected a troop of two hundred and fifty men, she marched at the head of it to the ca-habit, with a scarlet lappet, laced with gold; her hair was tied behind in loose curls, and surmounted with a velvet cap, and a scarlet feather She rode a bay gelding, with green furniture, richly triold; in her hand she carried a naked sword instead of a riding-whip Her countenance is described as being agreeable, and her figure handsome;[279] her eyes were fine, and her hair as black as jet In conversation she was full of intelligence and vivacity[280] The Prince, it is said, rode out of the lines to receive her, and to welcome the addition to his army, and conducted her to a tent with much ceremony It was reported that Mrs Cameron continued in the camp as the coland But this account is contradicted by Bishop Forbes ”She was so far,” he says, ”fro the Prince's army, that she went off with the rest of the spectators as soon as the army marched; neither did she ever follow the camp, nor was ever with the Prince but in public,[281] when he had his Court in Edinburgh”[282]
The Prince reh spirits Here he was presented by Major Macdonell with the first good horse that he had mounted in Scotland Charles Edward then marched his little army to Lochiel, which is about fivefirst at Fassefern, the seat of Lochiel's brother, and then proceeded to a village called Moidh, belonging to Lochiel
From this time the fate of Lochiel was inevitably bound up with that of the Prince At the siege of Edinburgh he distinguished hi manner:--When the deputies ere appointed by the town council to request a further delay from Charles set out in a hackney coach for Gray's Mill to prevail upon Lord George Murray to second their application, as the Netherbow Port was opened to let out their coach, the Camerons, headed by Lochiel, rushed in and took possession of the city The brave chief afterwards obtained frouard of the city, as he was hland chiefs; and his discipline was so exact that the city guns, persons, and effects were as secure under his care as in the ti in the country, but not hbourhood of an arhlanders
Lochiel reh while the Prince continued there, and witnessed the brief splendour of the young Chevalier's Court: it is thus described by an eye-witness:[283]--”The Prince's Court at Holyrood soon becaht, a vast affluence of well-dressed people Besides the gentlemen that had joined or coreat nuentlemen that came either out of affection or curiosity, besides the desire of seeing the Prince There had not been a Court in Scotland for a long time, and people came froht the King was already restored, and in peaceable possession of all the dominions of his ancestors, and that the Prince had only made a trip to Scotland to show hie Such was the splendour of the Court, and such the satisfaction that appeared in everybody's countenance”
At the battle of Falkirk, Lochiel was slightly wounded, as well as his brother Archibald[284] Throughout that engage the whole of the unhappy contest of 1745-6, Lochiel distinguished hiood faith An incident which happened after the battle of Falkirk, shows the respect paid to the head of the clan
While Charles Edas standing at an openat his house in Falkirk, reading a list of prisoners just presented by Lord Kiliments made his appearance in the street below He was armed with a musket and bayonet, and wore a black cockade in his hat, as it appeared, by way of defiance
Upon perceiving this, Charles directed the attention of Lord Kil near him, to the soldier Lord Kilmarnock ran down stairs immediately, went up to the soldier, struck the hat off his head, and set his foot on the black cockade At that instant a Highlander ca across the street, and laid hands on Lord Kilmarnock, and pushed him back Lord Kilhlander's head: the Highlander drew out his dirk and pointed it at Lord Kil in this position a few seconds they were separated: the man with the dirk took up the hat and put it on the head of the soldier, as hlanders
This little scene was explained to so's uniform was a Cameron, who, after the defeat of the Government army, had joined his clan He was received with joy by the Camerons, who permitted hihlander who pointed the dirk at Lord Kilmarnock's breast, was the soldier's brother; the croho surrounded him were his kinsmen of the clan No one, it was their opinion, ”could take that cockade out of the soldier's cap, except Lochiel himself”[285] Lochiel accompanied the Prince in his disastrous expedition to Derby
At the end of February 1746, he was sent with General Stapleton to besiege Fort William He left that enterprise when summoned by Charles Edward to assemble around his standard on the field of Culloden On the eventful fourteenth of April, the day before the battle, Lochiel joined the Prince's arhlanders, who never pitched a tent, lay a leader slept beneath the roof of Culloden House
The following extract from the Duke of cueneral and detestable individual had studied the habits of those whom it was his lot to conquer; and mark also his contempt for the ”Lowlanders and arrant scuhlanders[286]
”Edinburgh, 12 Jan 1745-6 Sunday Parole, Derby
”Field-officer for the day: to-hlander's way of fighting, which there is nothing so easy to resist, if officers and men are not prepossessed with the lyes and accounts which are told of them They commonly form their front rank of what they call their bestallways but fehen they forhlanders for Lowlanders and arrant scue ives their fire and immediately thron their firelocks and co a noise and endeavouring to pearce the body, or battallions before the twelve or fourteen deep by the time they come up to the people, they attack The sure way to deonally to the centre where they come, the rear rank first, and even that rank not to fire till they are within ten or twelve paces; but if the fire is given at a distance you probably will be broke, for you never get tiive your foot for dead, for they being without a firelock, or any load, no man with his arive no quarters; but if you will but observe the above directions, the are theday when the ar drawn up on Drumossie Moor, waited in vain till enerals and chiefs, and proposed to attack the Duke of cu